Category Archives: Work

Fully Using My Work Time (or Having A Job Where I Feel Productive)

Posted on June 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Fully Using My Work Time (or Having A Job Where I Feel Productive)

Since graduating college, I’ve had a lot of jobs in many different fields. Overall, most of my jobs are in the customer service sector (even as a tour guide at a film studio), but the jobs themselves have varied. But most recently, I have mainly had direct customer service or data entry jobs.

Some of these jobs have been jobs where there is a lot of downtime because my responsibilities are mainly when a customer is reaching out. My box office job is like that. We can be extremely busy at times, but there are other times when we only have a handful of customers and several hours with nothing to do. That’s why my data entry job has been perfect for me. I have the ability to work that job between customers. And the data entry job is one where I have no downtime while I’m working, but it can also be done on my own schedule so I can do the work whenever I can fit it in.

When I started my new customer service job, I wasn’t sure if it would be a job where I was always busy or one where I had a lot of downtime. And it has changed from the time I started almost half a year ago until now. When I started, there was a lot more downtime because my focus was just on customer support so I was really only busy when we had customers reaching out to us. And that worked for me because I was new to the job and needed the extra time to keep learning the different processes and not feeling rushed or stressed when trying to help a customer. But as I’ve been at that job, things have been getting busier and busier.

Now, besides my regular work, I’ve been taking on some extra projects. I’ve been working on helping to organize certain work systems. I’ve been working on helping to create a training manual for other employees who aren’t as familiar with how the customer service team works as well as future customer service employees. I’ve built some systems to help us track clients and other things we need to track. I’m really being kept busy during the hours that I’m scheduled.

All of these things are being done during my work time, so I’m not doing anything outside of my work hours. But I’m now really busy for the hours I’m scheduled to work. And I know this is pretty normal for most people. Having a job like my box office job with a lot of downtime is the weird situation. And I know I’m lucky that I have had a job like that where I could do other work during work. But it’s also nice to have a job where I am busy during my work hours. I like feeling like I’ve accomplished a lot each day. I can see progress being made in the bigger projects and not just that I’m answering the same thing all day long (like at my box office job where I am always saying “the sold out show is sold out of tickets”). And I do still work some hours each week with my box office job where I do have that downtime. So there is a balance in my life.

As much as I complain sometimes about being overscheduled or too busy, it is nice to have a job that makes me busy. It helps to have a clear delineation between work time and my time. When I was mainly working my box office job, when I finished work I could stay on my computer doing a lot of the same things I was doing between customers. But with my customer service job, when I’m done with work I might still be on my computer to do other work, but there is a much clearer line between my work time and non-work time. And that’s something I have needed for a long time. Especially lately since I don’t have much planned in my life after work time each day.

Just like I always do when I write about being happy to be busy, I’m sure I’ll hit a time of burnout and being overwhelmed. And that is a bit more in my control because I can take more time on some of the extra work projects I’ve taken on so I don’t feel rushed or overwhelmed. And I also have gotten better about being an advocate for myself and speaking up when things are getting to be a bit much.

But at least for now, I’m so grateful to feel productive like I do now. This is a feeling that I haven’t had in a while and it’s just another thing that makes things feel a bit more normal and less like I’m isolated and not doing much with my life.

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A Working Memorial Day (or Just Having A Regular Monday)

Posted on June 2, 2021 | Comments Off on A Working Memorial Day (or Just Having A Regular Monday)

Last year, for Memorial Day, I had a virtual hangout with my friends. That was one of the first big virtual hangouts I had with my friends last year and I remember us thinking that we would hopefully be together by Halloween last year. It was also one of the first big traditions that I missed having since I usually am spending the day with my friends and enjoying a fun BBQ. But last year, we all understood why we couldn’t be together and I am still grateful that everyone in my friend group has been able to stay safe.

This year, I know some people were able to get together and the guidelines do say that vaccinated people can be together. But my friends and I have all been very cautious about things and I knew that we weren’t going to have a hangout this year. But that was ok with me since I had to work on what is a day off for so many people.

When I was only working my box office job, having Mondays off was a normal way of life. I never worked on Mondays so having a holiday on a Monday just felt normal to me. But now, I do work my other customer service job Monday-Friday (between all my jobs, I’m working Monday-Saturday with occasional Sundays). So having a Monday holiday would usually mean a day off. But at my customer service job, we also rotate who does holiday coverage.

Working on a holiday does mean extra pay, so that’s nice. And it’s only one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. And I didn’t have to stress too much about getting all the work done because holiday work means that you look for the most urgent issues. There would likely be a lot of customers that I could wait to do until we reopened on Tuesday, but I also had the option to do some of the other work if I had the time. This was my first time doing the holiday work, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

And I’m glad that I did it because I was able to get a lot of work done that I would not necessarily have had time to do on Tuesday. I did have some slightly urgent client issues that I immediately handled first when I logged in for the morning, but I was able to do other work to fill the rest of that hour. Then I had several hours where I could relax if I wanted to. And I spent that time getting a few things done around my house and reading before I had to log in for the evening. And somehow, I managed to almost complete all the work before I had to log out. I know that saved me at least 2 hours on Tuesday, and when I was working on Tuesday I had a lot more work to get done. So I never would have completed everything from the weekend in a single day. It was nice to have a day to get myself caught up and ready for the week.

And honestly, it was fine working on a holiday. Maybe I would have been a bit more upset if there was going to be an in-person hangout and I was going to miss my first chance to see my friends in person in over a year. And if there had been something planned, I’m sure I would have been able to figure something out so I didn’t miss out on it completely. But I’m glad that I didn’t have to add that stress into my day. And even though I had a working holiday day off, I was still able to relax a bit and enjoy my free time.

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Working On Speaking Up For Myself (or Finding A Balance Between Confident and Bossy)

Posted on April 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Working On Speaking Up For Myself (or Finding A Balance Between Confident and Bossy)

I think a lot of women were raised to be polite or demure. We aren’t supposed to make a lot of trouble for people and try to go with the flow. We are called bossy if we do speak up and that’s used as an insult. Men are called assertive and that’s a good thing, but women are bossy and it’s bad. I wasn’t raised to not speak up for myself, but I was raised to be kind and polite. And sometimes being kind and polite means being quiet because speaking up could cause issues. And this is a mindset that I’ve had for a long time even when I wanted to fight it.

A big place this has been a problem for me in the past has been in jobs. I know that having a job isn’t always a given. There are a lot of times that I know I’m lucky to have a job or opportunity and I don’t want to lose it. But this also means that I’ve tolerated a lot of bad workplaces in the past. There’s one job where I was harrassed by my manager, but I never spoke up because I was worried about being fired. I did speak to HR, but they didn’t seem to take it seriously. My manager would call me fat or make fun of my personal life in front of others and I just stayed quiet. There was another job where my boss was verbally abusive to all the employees. I was a receptionist and when I asked for a raise (which was a part of my contract) he screamed at me saying that I was an awful person for not appreciating what I had. The one time that I did speak up a bit was at one job that wanted me to take some continuing education classes and then I found out the only places I could take them that they would be ok with would be through their religious headquarters. But even then, I didn’t speak up that much. I just said that the job wasn’t a good fit for me and not that it was illegal for them to require me to pay for classes from a religious group.

And I think from my posts on here it’s clear that another place I have struggled with speaking up is with dating. I don’t think this one is as gendered, but I do think a lot of women want to be the cool girl who doesn’t push too hard. You don’t want to be the one to bring up where your relationship is going because you don’t want to seem like you are pushing for marriage and scare the guy off. I’m slowly starting to learn that if the guy is the right guy, discussing the tough stuff won’t scare them off. But I still am always worried that I will scare a guy off and for some reason they are the last person who will ever be interested in me. It doesn’t help that I have had some relationships end when I had the “what are we” conversation and another relationship end because a guy claimed he didn’t believe me enough when I said I wasn’t pushing for us to be in a relationship. But I also can look back at those past relationships and realize that even if I didn’t have that conversation, the relationship wouldn’t have lasted for other reasons.

But I’m noticing that I am getting better at speaking up lately.

I’ve spoken up at all of my jobs now to make sure that things are working out for me. I’ve spoken up about asking for a raise when it was in the job offer that one would be coming. I’ve spoken up about my schedule and what would work best for me. And I’ve spoken up about job responsibilities and what seems reasonable.

And with dating, even though it’s still tough to date during the pandemic, it is getting easier as things get safer. And that means I have more chances to speak up and advocate for myself. I’m not pushing hard for anything that feels unreasonable, but I am setting boundaries and expectations. For example, someone from my past reached out to me and I had some hesitation about trying things again with them. They had some issues with being reliable and being an infrequent texter. So I told them that if they wanted to start talking again, it had to be on the phone and not over text. And I’m holding them to that. They still are texting, but I am not responding most of the time. And when I do respond, I say the same thing again about how if they want to talk to me they need to call. I don’t have to just go with what they want when it’s not what I want. And if there is someone that I have talked to that I want to see again, I am getting more comfortable with being very upfront and asking them out again. I’m not waiting on them to ask me out. If I want to see them again, I am clear about that so they know where I stand.

I do still worry that sometimes I seem bossy or demanding, but I’m working through that more and more. And the more that I do speak up for myself and see the positive response I get in return, the more comfortable I feel doing this. I know that it’s not always going to work out for me and I do have stories of where it didn’t work, but more often it either works or opens up the conversation to discuss things more so I can make sure that I’m getting what I want out of life, work, and relationships.

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Back To An Old Job (or It Feels New and Familiar At The Same Time)

Posted on April 20, 2021 | Comments Off on Back To An Old Job (or It Feels New and Familiar At The Same Time)

For so many of us, this past year has been a crazy one for work. Some of my friends went from going into an office every day to working at home. Many of my friends lost their jobs and either have been working hard to find a new one or have made major adjustments in their life (like moving to where they could find work). My job situation has been a lot of ups and downs over the last year.

When the pandemic hit, neither of my jobs were affected at first. Then, my box office job cut back my hours. Then the box office job cut back the hours even more. And in August, my box office job had to let me go. I was still working my data entry job, but it wasn’t enough work to cover my expenses, so I had to balance how many hours I worked at that job with my unemployment (so I wouldn’t lose my unemployment). And I was very lucky that job was willing to work with me and understood the situation that I was in.

Then at the end of last year, I got my new job doing customer service with the social media company. I was so grateful to get that job and it’s been great working with them. Once I started working with them, I increased my hours with my data entry job and switched my job responsibilities to fit my skill set better. And more recently, my hours at my new job are being reduced a bit (partially due to something that was my choice and partially due to new employees being added to the schedule). But even with the reduced hours, I was still able to make everything work for me.

And then last week, I started back at my old box office job! I have known this was coming for a while, but I wasn’t sure of the exact start date. A lot of it depended on how safe it was to do shows in different locations. And when they asked if I wanted to come back, they asked me about my availability. I let them know what hours I could do around my other jobs since I don’t feel I could overlap my 2 customer service jobs. So they worked with that and asked me to start back with 2 weekday afternoons as well as the Saturday shift.

Going back to my box office job was a little odd. Things are familiar since I worked that job for so many years. But they are also different because some of the backend systems have changed and there are different rules to be aware of with new safety and health guidelines. I don’t feel like a total newbie at the job, but I had to ask questions about a lot of things that I knew before. Sometimes I had a complete blank on something simple, like accidentally forgetting the work phone number. But I know it’s just a matter of time before things come back to me and it’s easy again.

I know the long plan is for me to be working every afternoon plus on Saturdays, but that might take some time to get to that point. A lot of the locations aren’t open yet or can’t be open to full capacity. There are a few that could do that because they were doing the shows outdoors or for other reasons. But it hopefully will just be a matter of time before everything is up and running again. For now, I’m just glad to be back at work so I can ease into things as they get busier.

Even with working 3 jobs right now, my work schedule isn’t too overwhelming. I’m very lucky with the hours I work and how nicely my schedule fits together. And I’m grateful for any and all jobs I have. I would love to get myself into a better financial place so I don’t have to have the stress and worries I had before. There are some more expensive things that I’d like to be able to save for, like a new computer in the next year or so.

Every time something from before the pandemic is back in my life, I feel a bit more hopeful that things are finally normalizing and that this time will soon be in the past. And getting back to my old job, even if it’s not the same schedule as I worked before, is a big sign to me that we are getting back to normal again and I love that feeling.

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Working On A Work/Life Balance (or Almost Repeating A Recent Monthly Challenge)

Posted on April 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Working On A Work/Life Balance (or Almost Repeating A Recent Monthly Challenge)

I know I say something like this every year, but I can’t believe we are a quarter of the way through 2021 already! I hope that as the year progresses, things continue to get safer and soon the pandemic will be a thing of the past. And while the first quarter of the year wasn’t perfect, it was an improvement over a lot of last year.

And while things aren’t open up completely just yet and I’m still trying to be careful and cautious, my monthly challenge for last month was to work on planning more things that I can do. Being home and being isolate is good for health reasons, but my mental health suffered a lot. I know that the sacrifice was worth it because I didn’t get sick, but trying to plan ahead is important and gives me something to look forward to. I didn’t end up doing too much this past month to be a bit more social, but it was better than it has been before. Even just having time to hang out with friends has been good. And going to things like the Drive-In Drag show has made life much more interesting lately. But I’m still trying to find things to do to fill up my free time. I know that I might feel a bit better about doing things once I’m considered fully vaccinated (which is really only a few days away). I’m starting to take some more chances with being social, and I need to allow myself to do that while also being aware of what risks I’m taking.

And since I’m trying to find more fun things to do in my life, I need to work on really finding what time I have to use for free time. I’m not working a ton, but I’m working more than I have lately. I will be having a slight reduction of hours at one job, but I’ve increased my hours at my other and I might be starting back at my old customer service job this month! If I’m back at my old job, it won’t be the same hours I used to work. I will actually be working around the hours for my new customer service job. But that will make my hours seem very close to what they were before the pandemic (with the exception of working on Mondays now with the new job).

With all of my work being done from home and one job being completely on my own time, it’s really easy for me to feel like I’m working a lot longer than I really am. If I work from 9-3 as set hours for my customer service jobs, goof around on my computer for an hour or two, work on my blog post for the next day, and then do 2 hours for my last job, it can feel like I worked from 9am-7pm even though I didn’t. I want to find a clear delineation between work time and fun time. Even if fun time is just reading a book or watching tv, I want to feel like my time is mine and I am not trying to finish up some work stuff later.

So that’s exactly what my challenge is for this month. I want to find a way to separate that time. I want to be planning for what hours I’m really working and what hours I’m not. This is similar to the scheduling challenge I recently did, but I’m putting more of a focus on what hours I’m working more than an overall schedule. I need to figure out what my real work schedule is. I know it’s not as many hours as it seems because I am mixing up fun time and work time. I need to be in more of a habit of having my own personal office hours and being able to walk away when I’m done.

I will say that one thing that is working in my favor is that I only do work stuff on my computer. I do have the ability to do some of it on my phone or my iPad and I do have my work email on my phone (in case I need to be reached), but I don’t work unless I’m on my computer. Part of this is because it’s not easy to work on a smaller screen or not have a keyboard. But it’s also nice to know that other devices are not for work and that I can relax while I’m on them.

I will probably do a lot of the same stuff I did with my scheduling challenge. I’m still not sure if having a paper schedule is better than a digital one, but I’ve been playing around with it. And while I won’t know for sure if I’m going to start back at my old job just yet, I’m going to schedule as if I am (it’s only going to be 2 hours a day when I return). And if I’m done with work stuff early because I didn’t need that time, that’s fine. I’d rather have too much work time scheduled than not enough.

Hopefully, this will make things a bit better for me and I won’t feel like I never step away from work. I want to have a balance with my time. Even though I’m not filling up my free time with a lot right now, I know that more is coming back into my life. And I’m continuing to prepare for that time to be here!

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3 Months At My New Job (or Having Another Job Review)

Posted on March 24, 2021 | Comments Off on 3 Months At My New Job (or Having Another Job Review)

It’s been just over 3 months since I started my new customer service job. While I’m still learning things, I’m feeling more and more settled with work these days. At the beginning, it was a bit overwhelming with everything that I was trying to learn. But it did eventually sink in and now I’m feeling pretty comfortable with most things customers are asking me about.

I haven’t worked too many jobs that have set check-in points, but with this one there was. I had a check-in about a month in (which was a little bit past a month because of the timing of holidays) and that went really well. But that one felt a bit more casual than what I was going to be expecting with the 3-month review. I had no reason to be nervous or worried, but I always feel that way about work. It’s been a long time since I’ve been let go from a job for a reason other than the pandemic. I shouldn’t be worried about that, especially when my manager has been very open with communication about my job performance. She hasn’t been hiding things as she sees them. If I make a mistake or do something that could be better, she lets me know. That can be a little scary, but I appreciate it so I can improve on my performance. But even with all that, knowing I was having my 3-month review coming up made me worried that it was all going to change.

But as I think anyone could have guessed, that wasn’t the case. I had my review last week and it went pretty much how I expected it to go. And we covered quite a few things in the meeting.

The first thing was something that I asked for. For the past 3 months, I’ve been doing 2 different jobs at the company. I’ve been doing the customer service work as well as outbound engagement work. And while I could continue doing both, I knew I was experiencing burnout with the outbound engagement work as I have been doing that for other jobs now too. And when I was hired, they were very open to me saying if I was feeling overwhelmed by both jobs. So I wasn’t afraid to mention it to them. I’m going to still be doing that work until a replacement is hired, but it probably won’t be too long before that happens. I also wanted to take this part of my job off my plate because I’m hearing more news about when I might be asked back to my old customer service job. I won’t be doing both jobs at the same time, but I don’t know when I would have time for the outbound engagement work when I’m working with my old job again too.

We also went over what has been good and what could be better. And for the most part, things have been awesome. I have previously said how things might have been harder for me than for most new hires because I started and then had time off for the holidays. That made things tough on me. Also, because of the holidays, the typical schedule for how things go each month has been a bit different. So the way things went while I was in training isn’t exactly how they normally go. It’s not a bad thing, but something I’m very aware of. And the only other thing that could be better was something we were able to fix on my check-in call. There’s something within our system where we enter new clients that wasn’t working the way I thought it should. We had to copy and paste things from old forms when I thought there was a way to make a template. And there was a way to make that happen and it was fixed at that moment! It wasn’t a huge problem, but it would make us much more efficient when we work. And efficiency is important.

And at the end of the call, I was told that I would be getting a raise! It’s not a huge raise, but it’s not insignificant either. And having that raise is going to make things a bit easier as I won’t have as many hours of work when I’m not doing the outbound engagement work anymore. I’m not sure if my hours will increase in the future right now, but I’m open to the possibility. And I am very happy with this job and feel like it’s a great fit for me, so I’m hoping that I will continue to grow with them!

I don’t know when I have another check-in call like this one, but I also know that I can always reach out to someone if I’m having concerns or an issue. I don’t need to wait for an official check-in to see if something can be fixed or changed. And knowing that is a great feeling and something that I haven’t experienced with all the jobs I’ve had before.

I’m still so grateful for my friend who helped me get this job. It’s been better than I could have expected and I’m excited to see what will be in my future with the company.

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An Afternoon With The Headshot Truck (or Doing Some Work Photos)

Posted on March 23, 2021 | Comments Off on An Afternoon With The Headshot Truck (or Doing Some Work Photos)

It’s been a while since I’ve had some new headshots taken. I know I need to do some new ones soon, but I’ve been putting it off for a bit. Before the pandemic, I was hoping I would have a different enough look to need them (like if I changed up my hair or lost weight). I know you don’t have to wait until you look different for new photos, but that was the excuse I was telling myself. And then during the pandemic, I’ve been telling myself that I wanted to wait until it was safer. I know several photographers have been doing headshots and have found ways to stay safe, but I was still using that as an excuse.

But last week, I had to get some photos done for my social media day job. We all needed official work photos done. Some people had some that were taken before, but everyone was getting new photos taken even if they had them done in the past. These photos are going to be used on the company website, in our work emails, and when we are doing something where we are representing the company. But because many of us who work there are also actors, they wanted the photos to be great for work and also possible to use as headshots.

The photos were taken with The Headshot Truck. I’ve known about The Headshot Truck for several years now and I hadn’t shot with them before. But I loved their work and was really excited to get a chance to shoot with them. Because of safety issues, the photos would all be taken outside but I knew that they were going to be great no matter what.

Since these photos are primarily for work-related purposes, there were a few things we all had to do. The main thing was that we all had to wear blue since that is the company color. That was fine with me since I think I photograph well in blue. So I wore one option and brought a few others in case I needed to change. We all only had 15 minutes for our shoots, so there wasn’t really time to do multiple looks. But I wanted to have options just in case I needed to change before we started shooting. Fortunately, the outfit that I wore to the shoot was perfect and I didn’t have to change.

One other difference between other headshot shoots was that I had to do my own hair and makeup. I almost always have someone to do my hair and makeup, but since this shoot was a mini-shoot and mainly for work, I wasn’t going to hire someone this time. So I did my own hair and makeup and hoped it would look ok.

The shoot itself was really fun and easy. There were 2 outdoor locations were did the photos in. And halfway through the shoot, the photographer let me look at the photos so I could see if there was anything I wanted to change. I’m glad I did look, because there was something odd with how my hair was going over my shoulder. It wasn’t anything bad or something anyone besides myself would notice, but I’m glad I could fix it because I know it would have bothered me looking at the photos. I will also likely do retouching (since you always need to do that) so I could have fixed it in retouching too. But I am glad I could change how my hair looked so I could feel better about my photos.

I haven’t gotten the images back just yet, but I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far. I’ve only seen a few shots from their computer screen after the shoot was done, but they look great!

I know my photo of their screen isn’t the best and it’s not easy to see the photos, but I was happy when looking at them. And I’m sure I’ll have a few different ones that are my top choices and I’ll ask friends to help me pick the best one. And maybe I’ll find one that I love for my work shot and another that I love for a headshot!

I love that I had this chance to take some new photos. Even though the main reason for them is for work, this is another thing I was able to do to get ready for being back to auditioning again. I’ve been doing self-tapes over the past year, but I know in-person auditions will be back in the future and I want to have myself in the best spot possible for those when they happen.

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Default ThumbnailTime For New Headshots (or Adding Some Personality Into My Photos) Default ThumbnailA Mini Photo Shoot (or Enjoying A Voter Freebie) Default ThumbnailExpress Headshot Day (or Another Fun Podcast Event) Default ThumbnailNew Headshots (or Trying To Be A Quirky Office Girl/College Student/Young Mom) Default ThumbnailBeing Underestimated (or Does My Opinion Not Matter?) Default ThumbnailGetting Pretty (or A Fresh Look For My New Pictures)

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Hitting A Bit Of Burnout (or I Took On A Lot At Once)

Posted on March 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Hitting A Bit Of Burnout (or I Took On A Lot At Once)

For so much of last year, I didn’t have much to do each day. I was struggling to fill my time and not be bored. So once I got a new job, I was grateful to have something to do plus I needed to start making money again. And it seems like getting my new job was the kick-off for other things starting up again or being a part of my day. But I also think that because of how empty my schedule was not that long ago, I added more things than I should have done at once. And now it’s getting a bit overwhelming.

I’ve struggled so much in the past with finding a balance between having free time and being overscheduled, and I’m aware that this is a privileged problem. I know many people would love to be overscheduled and working a lot. And I’m not saying I’m not grateful or understand that I’m lucky. But I also know that sometimes I can either take on too much or go too hard with things.

And lately, I’ve been noticing more and more signs of burnout. I’m glad I can recognize it earlier than I have in the past, but recognizing it doesn’t fix the feeling. I started to have some signs I was getting closer to burnout last month, which is why I made my monthly challenge in February about planning out my day each day. And that did help a bit. I noticed where my days were being overpacked and where I had almost too much free time.

But this month, things seem to have gotten busier for me. I’m not going out and doing things that often, but I have more things I need to do that are at a specific time. And the things that I do that aren’t time-specific are usually being fit in between those scheduled events. So sometimes, it feels like I’m going non-stop. For example, yesterday I had work, then I had to drive somewhere for a work-related thing (more on that next week), then run an errand that I had been putting off, and then I had a Zoom meeting I need to be on. From the time I logged into work until I logged out of Zoom, I was scheduled for about 11 hours of my day. I also had to fit in the other job that I can do at any time, so I was doing it in chunks between everything else. By the time I was able to sit down and write this post, I was exhausted.

And I am happy to be exhausted and feel productive again, but I also know I can’t keep this up. Fortunately, not all days are like this. They usually don’t have so many things back to back so I have some decompression time when switching from one thing to another. And they also usually have more fun things scheduled so I look forward to something. I don’t know if the burnout is harder now because I don’t have much else in my life and I can focus on it more, but something is hitting me harder than I would expect when I compare this time to burnouts in the past.

I’m taking some steps now to make sure that I take care of myself and my mental health. I’m looking at how I can plan each day a bit better so that I don’t feel as stressed to get everything done. Obviously, there are some things that I don’t have a ton of flexibility with because they are not on my own schedule. But I know I have plenty of things that I can find ways to adjust and move around. And I need to keep working on creating a daily schedule each day since that does help me feel better about my day. When I can see it written out, it helps me know that there is a time to do everything. I’m not trying to cram everything in when I might have some flexibility to do some work later.

I’m sure finding the balance of free time and being overscheduled will continue to be an issue for me. For all I know, in a week or two I’ll be writing about how I’m bored and want to do more things. In some ways, it’s nice to have this as a problem again because it does feel a bit normal to me. But I also know that I will move things around to make them better and things will be better for me for at least a little while. And maybe I’ll figure out the perfect way to start adding more things back to my schedule as they open up. I’ve been looking forward to things being safe again and I know I need to find the time to take advantage of those when I can!

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Default ThumbnailI Tried, I Still Hit Burnout (or Finding Some New Limits) Default ThumbnailTrying To Avoid Holiday Burnout (or Staying Home For Self-Care) Default ThumbnailTaking A Break To Be Sick (or Hitting A Road Bump) Default ThumbnailGetting Too Comfortable (or Getting Ready To Quit) Default ThumbnailSeeing How To Make My New Schedule Work (or I Have A Better Idea Of My Free Time Now) Default ThumbnailGetting Myself Back On Schedule (or At Least This Is A Slow Transition)

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Another Work Meeting (or Starting To Plan How Work Will Go For Me)

Posted on February 23, 2021 | Comments Off on Another Work Meeting (or Starting To Plan How Work Will Go For Me)

Not too long ago, I had a meeting about my data entry job and what this year would look like for my work. Last year was a very weird year for that job. Because most of my work was centered around finding in-person events, it was very difficult to do. I also had to balance my job and unemployment because I needed to be at a certain level of work to keep my eligibility for unemployment for my other job. And the end of the year is always a bit weird for that job because I am only on temporary 1-year contracts, so I have to hope that I will get a new contract offered to me right away. Sometimes there is a gap in time between one contract ending and a new one starting, but they really try to keep it so there is no break in my work.

In my meeting, we discussed the issues I was having with finding events as well as work expectations for 2021. That’s when I officially found out I’d be getting a new contract right away, but I had assumed that would be the case. And we talked about increasing my hours again as well as changing up my work. And t the end of that meeting, I was feeling really great about things. My work was still going to be partially focused on finding in-person events and I’ll be doing about the same number of hours doing that as I have been doing. But I will be adding more hours doing some social media work that happens to be very similar to the work that I’m doing for my new job! It really worked out perfectly for me because they were looking for someone to do social media work and I just happened to get a new job doing that right before they asked me.

So I have known this change was going to come for a little bit, but a few things had to be set up before I started the new work. And last week, I finally had my mini-training meeting about the social media work. Fortunately, it’s not anything too different for me. It’s almost like my data entry work and social media work were mashed together and created a new job. So it’s the type of work that I’m already used to doing but with a different type of social media account. And we did discuss a bit more about expectations for what I will be able to get done each week, so I feel a bit better about making sure that I don’t feel like I’m slacking off with work.

And this week, I will be starting the additional work for that job. I’m always a little nervous about new work or work tasks, but I know I will ok doing this. I just have to get a few systems set up for myself so I can work efficiently and maximize my time. And once I’m in a routine with the new tasks, then I am going to start doing some more planning with my work life in general. While I don’t have the option right now to go back to my box office job, I have been told this may be coming soon. It depends a lot on when more shows will reopen. And I’m still trying to see if I can fit that job in now that I have other work.

But between my new job and the additional hours for my data entry job, I’m almost back to what I was making before everything shut down. I’m a little shocked that’s true because it almost felt like I couldn’t be back until I was back at my old job. But I guess getting my new job and the hours I work there have really helped me. I still feel like I’m dealing with unemployment even though I’m not.

And because I’m almost back at where I was before, that means I need to get more serious about budgeting again. I’ve slowly been working on getting back into my budgeting habit, but it wasn’t easy without feeling secure in my income. And that’s finally changing for me. And I need to start planning things forward instead of waiting for things to go back to how they were before. There aren’t a lot of things moving forward in my life these days, but this is one and I have to make sure I don’t ignore planning ahead just because other things are stagnant.

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Seeing How To Make My New Schedule Work (or I Have A Better Idea Of My Free Time Now)

Posted on January 13, 2021 | Comments Off on Seeing How To Make My New Schedule Work (or I Have A Better Idea Of My Free Time Now)

Last week was my first week with my normal schedule at my new job. I am glad I was eased into the new job since there was a lot to learn. So many things were similar to my old customer service job but just different enough that I had to be aware of what I was doing so I wasn’t doing what I did at the old job. It was good that I had a lot of time with training and a shorter schedule at first. Having a full week off for the holidays was a bit tough, but I took that time to work on reviewing everything I learned.

I’m not feeling totally confident with the new job, but I’m getting closer each day. I understand different processes and policies and the questions I have for my manager are becoming the more rare and specific things and not the general questions. I feel like this is progress and I’m proud of it. And while it’s not as many hours as I’ve worked before at my old job, it’s been a long time since I’ve worked this many hours so I’m getting used to not having my time be mine as much as it was for most of last year.

I also got an update from my data entry job and what the new contract would be like. The new contract is still being worked on, but I saw what they were thinking and my job is going to be transitioning a bit. I will be getting 4 times the hours I’ve had recently (although the reduced hours were partially at my request to deal with some things with unemployment), so I will be closer to the number of hours I had when I started years ago. But most of my hours will be moving away from the data entry work and going into doing some social media work.

This was something we discussed in our recent meeting about my new contract, so it’s not unexpected. How the hours will be split was slightly more unexpected because I thought it would be more focused on the data entry work. But I’m good with this idea and how it will be for me when I am working with the new contract (for now, I’m doing work as it was listed on the old contract, so I haven’t started the social media work yet).

Between the 2 jobs, it won’t add up to exactly 40 hours a week, but it will be close so I feel like it will still feel like full-time work. And while there could be some overlap with the hours I work, I feel like it won’t be as much as before. At least not at first as I need to pay more attention to my new job than I did for my old customer service job. At my old job, when we didn’t have customers to help, I was just sitting and waiting. With the new job, there are other tasks I need to work on when I am not assisting a customer. There is a bit of free time, but I am pretty busy during my hours each day.

And I know this is normal. Working and having a ton of free time is not normal and was a luxury that I got spoiled with. I planned my days in the past assuming that in a 7-hour shift I would probably have about 4 hours when I could do anything I needed to do as long as I was still at my computer. I would try to be productive during that free time working my data entry job or working on writing blog posts, but occasionally I would just watch videos online while waiting for a customer. Most people do not get to relax while they are working. Often they have to work after they are supposed to be done. I just got spoiled with how things were for me for so long.

But it’s not that bad. This is just something I have to get used to and I know it won’t be a huge struggle once I figure it out. I just have to work on my time management again with the new schedule. I have to plan out things during my before and after work time that before I might have done during work. I will still be able to fit everything in, especially since there is nothing I have outside of work right now. If I have to work on other things for a few hours after work, I’m not missing anything I had planned. I’m not going out to see anyone so all that time is mine. And it will be good to work through this plan while I have nothing else to do. Hopefully, by the time things are reopening, I will have a better idea of how to manage all my time, and my after-work time will be more stable from day to day.

I know how lucky I have been in so many ways. I am lucky with how my old job was with allowing me so much free time. I’m lucky I was able to do both jobs together because of my free time. I’m lucky that I got another job that is remote and pays well. I’m lucky that my other job is able to increase my hours so I should be making enough to be ok soon. And I’m lucky that I have the luxury of time right now and I don’t have to worry about taking care of others and I can be a bit selfish with what I do each day.

Just like with so much I’ve done lately with my schedule, I will figure out how to make it work and I have the time to slowly do that. I will need to get back into time management planning again, which is something I haven’t had to do in a while. But soon enough, I will have it down to a consistent plan and hopefully, it stays that way for a while.

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